NYPD actually 'buys back' missing gun stolen from 103rd Precinct locker

The 103rd Precinct in Jamaica, Queens, where two weapons went missing from lockers.











A gun swiped from a police lieutenant's locker - sparking a probe into whether it was an inside job by disgruntled officers - was sold to an NYPD buyback program for $100.

The discovery is alarming because it means that if cops took the 9-mm. pistol from their supervisor as a retaliatory prank, they dangerously let it out of their possession.

"We've had guns disappear in the past because malcontents stupidly thought that was a way to make their cause known, but they usually showed up late in the same precinct," a police source said Tuesday.

"For police guns to be floating around like this - shameful."

The handgun is one of two weapons discovered missing from lockers - secured with combination locks - in the 103rd Precinct stationhouse in Jamaica, Queens, on Saturday.

One belonged to Lt. Charles Minch, the special operations officer; the other belonged to his driver, Officer Charles Lovett, sources said.

Minch showed up to work Saturday evening to find his office door still locked but the combination locks on the lockers dangling open.

The office was empty for less than two hours that day, so Internal Affairs Bureau investigators suspect one or more cops in the precinct is the culprit.

Minch had recently rearranged the schedules of half a dozen cops so that many had to work weekends - and they weren't happy about it.

"Morale at the station was not where it should be, so that's what's under the microscope," another source said.

The mystery took a surprising turn over the weekend, when a man walked into a Brooklyn stationhouse and said he had a gun to turn in as part of the NYPD's buyback program, sources said.

It's a no-questions-asked initiative aimed at getting weapons that might be used in crimes off the street.

As part of standard procedure, the NYPD traced the 9-mm. and realized it belongs to Minch.

Investigators have started interviewing all 103rd Precinct staff who worked Saturday, and they are trying to get DNA from the weapon.

They were also trying to try to track down the man who turned in the gun in Brooklyn.

"Someone could have ditched the gun, and the guy legitimately found it," one source said.

"Or someone could have had a friend, or worse, someone they once arrested, do a favor and walk the gun in."

Lovett's gun has not turned up.